Zimpapers Logo

Tendai H. Manzvanzvike
Head of Zimpapers Knowledge Centre
NUMEROUS commentators bemoan the lack of recognition of women freedom fighters.

“While many of the African male freedom fighters are well-known, their female counterparts have been largely forgotten. These women, usually left to the margins of the society, were quite instrumental in the fight for the liberation of their respective countries,” writes Nduta Waweru, in an online publication.

Tanya Lyons in a 1997 presentation titled, “Gendered war talk: Interrogating ‘women’ in contemporary discourses of war”, said: “Over the centuries, women have always been involved in wars that have forged new nations, destroyed kingdoms, liberated countries from oppressors.”

She further argued that “investigating the representation of women in the liberation war begs the question of what kind of challenges to traditional representations of women would their stories, the stories of women guerrilla fighters offer?”

The “gender-sensitive lenses” when properly worn, will reveal that the likes of Mbuya Nehanda (Charwe Nyakasikana), the spirit medium was a warrior, military strategist and central figure of the First Chimurenga, towards the end of the 19th century.

The colonial system executed her for her resilience and resistance to their dominance.

Angola boasts Queen Nzinga, a 17th century heroine who is remembered for her “intelligence, political and diplomatic wisdom, and brilliant military tactics”.

Madagascar’s Queen Ranavalona I in the 19th Century was “one of the few African rulers who was able to repel colonisation totally during their reign.”

In Nigeria, there was the Muslim queen-warrior Amina, who had “an outstanding military career as a professional soldier and was known as a great military strategist.”

Between 1992 and January 2021, 13 national heroines of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle have been laid to rest at the National Heroes Acre, while dozens others are buried at provincial and district heroes’ shrines. They are mothers and daughters of the protracted liberation struggle.

They include: Cdes Sarah “Sally” Francesca Mugabe; Johanna MaFuyana Nkomo; Julia Tukai Zvobgo; Ruth Lottie Chinamano; Sunny Ntombiyelanga Takawira; Sabina Mugabe; Victoria Fikile Chitepo; Vivian Mwashita; Shuvai Mahofa; Maud Aloisia Muzenda; Maria Matumo Msika; Thokozile Angela Mathuthu and Ellen Gwaradzimba.

Other fallen women combatants are buried in Mozambique and Zambia, while some were laid to rest in district and provincial heroes shrines across the length and breadth of the country.

Below are some of the heroines of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation.

Sally Mugabe (1931-1992)

Born Sarah Francesca Hayfron on June 6, 1931 in Ghana, Cde Sally Mugabe died at Parirenyatwa Hospital on January 27, 1992 from a kidney ailment. She was the first heroine to be interred at the national shrine.

Amai Sally Mugabe went to Achimota Secondary School before she qualified as a school teacher. She met her future husband, the late President Robert Mugabe at Takoradi Teacher Training College, where they were both teaching.

The couple got married in Salisbury (now Harare) in April 1961. Coming from an independent and free country that Ghana was, Cde Sally Mugabe was annoyed by the open racial discrimination practiced in Rhodesia.

Her militant attitude and outspoken aversion to racial and other forms of oppression compelled her to organise and urge other women to join the liberation struggle.

It was not long before she experienced the wrath of the settler colonialists. In 1961, Amai Mugabe was charged with sedition and sentenced to five years in jail after leading a group of women to the Prime Minister’s Office, protesting against the 1961 Constitution. She appealed against sentence and was restricted to her Highfield home.

The appeal court never heard the case because Amai Mugabe skipped the country and went to Tanzania where nationalist leaders intended to form a government-in-exile.

In 1964, her only child Nhamodzenyika was born from a pregnancy complicated by Amai Mugabe’s high blood pressure, lack of proper medical care and political uncertainty shrouding the struggle. For the sake of the child, the Mugabes decided, to separate, with Amai Mugabe taking Nhamodzenyika to Ghana while Cde Mugabe returned to Rhodesia, where he was arrested and imprisoned.

In 1966 baby Nhamodzenyika died of cerebral malaria in Ghana. Amai Mugabe had to endure the loss of their child alone as the Rhodesians denied Cde Mugabe permission to attend the funeral.

In 1967, Amai Mugabe went into exile in London. She spent the next eight years campaigning for the release of political detainees in Rhodesia. The release of Cde Mugabe from prison in 1975 and his subsequent escape to Mozambique saw Amai Mugabe rejoining her husband in Maputo.

She found herself in a new role of a mother-figure to thousands of Zimbabwean revolutionary fighters and refugees, who had fled from Rhodesian governmental oppression.

In 1978 she was elected Zanu-PF deputy secretary of the Women’s League. In 1980 she assumed a new, national role as wife of Zimbabwe’s first black Prime Minister.

Perhaps, Amai Mugabe’s greatest and most memorable contribution to Zimbabwe was her tireless devotion to improving the welfare of children and the underprivileged members of society.

As early as 1981 when she became the patron of Mutemwa Leprosy Centre in Mutoko, Amai Mugabe raised money and donations for the centre, and helped erase the stigma and stereotype associated with lepers.

The needs of children were always at her heart. To that end, Amai Mugabe assumed patronage of many children’s centres. She even initiated projects aimed at rehabilitating commercial sex workers.

Her concern for children was rewarded when she was invited to be the Executive Chairperson of the Child Survival and Development Foundation in Zimbabwe. In 1988, with assistance from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), she established the Child Survival Development Committee for Zimbabwe, and increased international awareness of the plight of children in Southern Africa.

The resultant response to her worldwide fundraising efforts was overwhelming. In 1989, Amai Mugabe was elected the first Secretary of the united Zanu PF Women’s League as well as Secretary for Women’s Affairs the party’s Politburo.

To mark the 10th anniversary of her death in 2002, Zimbabwe issued a set of four postage stamps of a common design, using two different photographs.

The Second Republic has since renamed Harare Central Hospital to Sally Mugabe Central Hospital.,

Johanna ‘MaFuyana’ Nkomo

(1927-2003)

Cdes Joshua and Johanna Nkomo’s story is that of royalty getting married to the struggle.

Cde Johanna Nkomo, popularly known MaFuyana, wife of the late Vice President Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo, was born on September 18, 1927 and she died on June 3, 2003.

She was 76. She was buried at the National Heroes Acre on June 7, 2003.

MaFuyana was born to Paul Silwalume Fuyana and Maria Sithunzesibi Mbambo in Mbembeswane (eMaphandeni) in the Matobo District, and was the second of three children.

Born within the Nguni royalty, MaFuyana’s upbringing was richly grounded in African culture and values, both of which prepared her for her future role as wife to a leading founder and maker of the nation — Father Zimbabwe.

Even then, her firm grounding in African culture did not stop her from embracing Christianity and Western education.

She attended St Joseph’s Primary School and Emphandeni before proceeding to work for the Dominican Sisters’ Convent in Bulawayo as a girls’ hostel matron for two years.

It was at the Convent that an encounter that was to change her life took place: “One morning (in 1949) at the Dominican Sisters’ Convent when someone came to call me. I was introduced to a handsome young man in his early thirties.

“When I met Joshua, he pleaded with me to marry him. At first I didn’t take his proposal seriously. I thought he wanted to fool around with me since my sister was married to his father and I was from another clan.”

After initial difficulties, the two tied the knot on October 1, 1949, and moved to start a new home at the Railway Compound, close to the present-day Bulawayo Railway Station.

Sadly, the young couple lost their first child Themba, who died in his infancy in 1951. The second child, Thandiwe Barbara, arrived on June 1, 1954, to be followed by Ernest Thuthani (now late) on November 11, 1955. Three years later on September 29, 1958, came Michael Sibangilizwe. The family’s last born, Lousie Sehlule, arrived on August 24, 1964.

Behind the illustrious revolutionary, commitment and leadership of the late Vice President Nkomo was this steadfast granddaughter of Mdilizelwa who scoffed at risks and made enormous sacrifices which have hitherto remained untold.

With the husband’s life oscillating between long spells of detention and onerous and risky missions of the struggle, the burden of raising the family was hers.

Single-handedly, she fended for the family, ensuring that all the children secured a decent upbringing and education. Her strength and resourcefulness as a mother released her husband from family chores, giving him the precious time to focus on leading and prosecuting the struggle for Independence.

Because she was, in fact, married to the struggle, her motherly love was national, as it went beyond her immediate family to embrace many young cadres to and from various guerrilla training camps, refugee centres and educational institutions earning her the appellation “Mother of the Nation”.

In a society as disfigured and as paranoid as white-ruled settler colonial Southern Rhodesia, even mothers were regarded as threats to white domination.

Mama MaFuyana’s matrimonial association with a figure who nagged the colonial authorities made her a prime target of successive colonial regimes.

But the aggressive nationalist that lay beneath her quiet dignity was quick to show and express itself in defence of her family and the African cause. Hardly a week after giving birth to Sehlule, Mama MaFuyana was raided at her Pelandaba home by a unit of the Southern Rhodesia Special Branch.

In self-defence and much to the astonishment of the unsuspecting intruding colonial agents, she hurled a can of lactogen meant for little Sehlule at them. For that, she earned herself detention at Western Commonage. All the same, a point had been made emphatically.

This was not to be the last of such confrontations. In March 1977, Ian Smith’s rabid and racist regime hatched a sinister plan to kidnap the 13-year old Sehlule, as a way of avenging the death of one Father Possenti whose death at Regina Mundi in Gwaai, the regime blamed on freedom fighters.

Describing her travail at the hands of successive racist regimes, Cde Mugabe noted: “She came under enormous pressure from the occupying racist colonial Rhodesian regime. But she would not crack; she would not betray the cause of her husband which was the cause of her people.”

Sensing that her family was in danger, she was left with no option, but to leave the country for her safety and that of her children. She briefly stayed in England the same year before proceeding to the then German Democratic Republic, itself socialist and strong supporter of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence.

The post-independence conflict between the two sister liberation movements never diminished her vision of, and commitment to working for a united and peaceful Zimbabwe.

Characteristically, she would chide men for exaggerating their differences, thus threatening the peace for children who were her first love. Up to her death, she worked for unity of all Zimbabweans, indeed for the welfare of the underprivileged children through the Child Survival and Development Foundation.

It is such given-ness to the poor and the underprivileged, her steadfast commitment to the cause of the Zimbabwean people, which make her departure a sad loss to all. — Additional source: A Guide to The Heroes Acre.